ANTICOSTI ISLAND
Land area : ~7900 km2.
20th largest island in Canada. 90th in the world.
Permanent population : 240, mostly in
the village of Port-Menier.
Located between Québec's Côte-Nord and Gaspésie, separated from the land by Jacques-Cartier and Hunguedo straits, Anticosti island marks the entrance of the St. Lawrence river into its Gulf. In my opinion, this island probably represents what's the closest to a boreal paradise. Canyons, epic waterfalls, valleys, turquoise waters, dramatic landscapes, legendary shipwrecks, legendary hunts, and the ghosts of sorcerer Olivier Gamache and chocolate-maker Henri Menier... This island is anything but ordinary. A group of scientists and local developers just submitted an application for UNESCO World Heritage. We'll see how it unfolds.
Here's some historical background (mostly from Wiki, but I'll complete).
Anticosti, the name
The French explorer Jacques Cartier sailed along its shore in the summer of 1534. He provided its first written description and named it Isle de l'Assomption. About 1586, the historian André Thevet wrote that "the savages named [it] Naticousti", while Samuel de Champlain spelled it Antiscoti (1612), Antiscoty (1613), Enticosty (1625) and Antycosty (1632).
1680-1763 : Louis Jolliet and his fort
Its first settlers arrived in 1680 when King Louis XIV gave
Louis Jolliet the Seigneury of the Mingan Archipelago and Anticosti Island as compensation for
exploring the Mississippi and Hudson Bay. Louis Jolliet
erected a fort on Anticosti and in the spring of 1681 settled there with his wife, four children and six servants. His fort was captured and occupied during the winter of 1690 by some of the Massachusetts
troops of William Phips during their retreat after an unsuccessful attempt to capture Quebec City. After Jolliet's death in 1700, the Jolliet family retained ownership until 1763 when the island became part of British North America.
1763-1890 : exploitation of natural resources
The island was then more seen as a lumber reserve than anything else. In 1874, it was bought by the Anticosti Island Company and they founded the
villages at English Bay (today, Baie-Sainte-Claire) and Fox Bay. Most of the inhabitants, however, continued to be the few keepers of
the island's many lighthouses. Because of the number of
shipwrecks around the island, stores of provisions were also maintained around the island for sailors who might be washed ashore (Galiotte, Chicotte, Heath Point...) In 1882, the Parish of Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption was founded, a term referring to Cartier's name for the island.
By the 1890s, the fish and wildlife of the island had been almost eradicated through the locals' indiscriminate slaughter.
The Legend of Olivier Gamache
Oliver Gamache lived in Port Menier between 1831 and 1857. No one really knew where came from but then no one really cared to find out. Gamache was a strange bird. On a regular basis he would trick a local innkeeper into believing that he was having dinner with the devil so that the innkeeper would give him two helpings of dinner. He would them quickly eat both while paying only for one. Gamache was a primarily a farmer but he also shared duties manning the government emergency supply depot. In this role he saved victims of shipwrecks and salvaged supplies, often for his own use. Although salvage was a common practice on Anticosti, Gamache was often accused of being a “moonraker” as he purposefully mislead ships to hit the island shore. Gamache died in the winter of 1900. He was found in the spring in his cabin sitting comfortably in a chair with his feet resting in a small tub of solid ice.
1895 - 1926 : owned by a French tycoon, Henri MENIER
In 1895, Anticosti was
sold for $125,000 to French chocolate maker Henri Menier who also leased the shore fishing rights. Menier named the island's 70 m (230 ft) high
Vauréal Falls after the town of Vauréal in France where he owned a home.
He constructed the entire village of Port-Menier (at that time, Fox Bay and Baie-Sainte-Claire were abandoned), built a cannery for packing fish and lobsters, and attempted to develop its resources of lumber, peat and minerals. Many of the original houses still stand today. Furthermore, he converted the island into
a personal game preserve and introduced nonindigenous animals for this purpose, including a herd of 220 white-tailed deer. The deer thrived and today the population exceeds 160,000.
Henri Menier died in 1913 and his brother Gaston became the owner of Anticosti Island. He used and maintained it for a time but eventually decided it was not an economically viable operation and sold it to a pulp and paper company in 1926 for $6,000,000. For the next five decades, the island was used almost exclusively by logging companies which invested nothing in environmental or heritage protection, while the villages at English Bay and Fox Bay were abandoned.
Recent history
In 1974, the government of Quebec purchased the island from the forestry company. To this day, Anticosti Island is considered the “Graveyard of the St Lawrence”, having claimed in excess of 400 wrecks. As of 2017, about 60% is under management by Sépaq and since April 2001, 572 km2 has been designated as a national conservation park. With its 24 rivers and streams bountiful with salmon and trout, the island is now a tourist destination for anglers and hunters, particularly from the United States and Canada, as well as for paleontologists, bird watchers and hikers.The mouth of the rivers provide a good shelter on Anticosti, because there is freshwater, and hunting for seals and fishing for salmon is excellent.
On the other hand, in June 2011, the Quebec firm Pétrolia claimed to have discovered about 30 billion barrels of oil on the island of Anticosti, which is the first time that significant reserves have been found in the province. Enough with history. Now let's see.
I found a couple of pictures. To help you all locate the different places where the pictures were taken or the history/legends took place, I drew a map of the island. It seems pretty difficult to find anything that resembles a cultural map of Anticosti... So here's something I fixed :
Port-Menier, the only village of the island
Anticosti 2011-8627 by
wor49, sur Flickr
Nuit_EM50160 by
mammouth48, sur Flickr
Rue du Cap-Blanc_COT0251v1080 by
mammouth48, sur Flickr
Rivière Observation
Rivière l'Observation by
Simon Massicotte, sur Flickr
Kilimazoo Falls
Chute Kalimazoo by
Serge D., sur Flickr
Rivière à l'Huile (Oil River)
Île d'Anticosti - Rivière-à-l'Huile by
Isabelle Lafontaine, sur Flickr
Abandoned, near L'Anse-aux-Fraises
Au fil du Saint-Laurent by
Thalassa-France3, sur Flickr
IMG_6492 by
René Bourque, sur Flickr
The roads...
Île d'Anticosti - Sur la route by
Isabelle Lafontaine, sur Flickr
Around the island, sand is carried by the rivers
Par le hublot du piper by
Natasha Durand, sur Flickr
Le petit étang Salé
Anticosti 2011-8554 by
wor49, sur Flickr
Ruins near Galiotte
Galiote-la-mer by
Serge D., sur Flickr
Monstre Marin ! Sea Monster ! EXPLORE no 440 by
Bruno Laplante, sur Flickr
Vauréal falls and canyon
Au fil du Saint-Laurent by
Thalassa-France3, sur Flickr
Anticosti 2011-8502 by
wor49, sur Flickr
Jupiter river
Jupiter-30 by
Serge D., sur Flickr
The Shoreline
1968.jpg by
René Bourque, sur Flickr
Shipwreck
PA180096 by
wor49, sur Flickr
Vauréal-la-Mer
Vauréal-la-Mer by
Serge D., sur Flickr
The abandoned village of Baie-Sainte-Claire
Baie- Ste-Claire by
Serge D., sur Flickr
Baie Sainte-Marie
Anticosti Baie Ste-Marie by
Dominique Blanc-Tardif, sur Flickr
RC_20140724_182838 by
Raynald Claveau, sur Flickr
La Tour
RC_20140724_174753_-2_-3HDR by
Raynald Claveau, sur Flickr
Baie de la Tour
Baie de la Tour by
Simon Massicotte, sur Flickr
Chute Vauréal by
Simon Massicotte, sur Flickr
Chute Vauréal by
Simon Massicotte, sur Flickr
Fly-Fishing
IMG_0422 by
René Bourque, sur Flickr
Old cemetary of abandoned Baie-Sainte-Claire
Pointe-Ouest by
Serge D., sur Flickr
Red foxes, abundant near said Baie du Renard, or Fox Bay
Renards roux / Red Foxes by
Serge D., sur Flickr
IMG_0703-1 by
Stéphane Deshaies, sur Flickr
Anticosti - bis et bises by
Louis Lavoie, sur Flickr
Lighthouse at Pointe-Sud-Ouest
Pointe-Sud-Ouest Lighthouse by
Patrick Matte, sur Flickr
Cascade by
Serge D., sur Flickr
Fall season
DSC00440 by
Pierre de Tudert, sur Flickr
Pointe à la Tourbe
Le vieux sage... by
Louis Lavoie, sur Flickr
L'Anse-aux-Fraises and its stream
IMG_0904-1 by
Stéphane Deshaies, sur Flickr
_EM51432LRv2 by
mammouth48, sur Flickr
IMG_0832-1 by
Stéphane Deshaies, sur Flickr
Calou by
Serge D., sur Flickr
A Shipwreck Story
Anticosti is known as the graveyard of the Saint Lawrence, counting more than 400 shipwrecks lying on its shores. It's a real pleasure to explore. Many are the stories. Here's one. In November of 1828, a ship called the Granicus wrecked on the shores of Anticosti Island. The subsequent discovery of the crew and passengers some 6 months later turned into a case of murder and cannibalism.
The Granicus struck a reef on the eastern part of Anticosti island. The crew and passengers, numbering 30 in total, including 3 children and two women, all made it ashore and wintered over near Fox Bay (baie du Renard), living on supplies salvaged from the ship. On May 8th, 1829, a whaling schooner found the camp and were horrified by the sight. The wreck-survivors were all dead but they did not die of exposure, disease or malnutrition – they were murdered, cooked and eaten. The ship’s log was found with entries up to April 28th. Nothing in it gave a clue as to what had happened. Sometime between April 28 and May 6th, a period of only 8 days, someone had killed the survivors, cooked some body parts and left others to hang on a line. In one of the cabins, the horrified whalers found, lying peacefully in a bed, a recently-deceased man, whom they assumed was the murderer.
Dernière soirée / Last evening by
Serge D., sur Flickr
White-tailed deers
Cerfs de Virginie / White-tailed Deers by
Serge D., sur Flickr
Shipwreck by
Christian Rondeau, sur Flickr
Fishing
IMG_0546-1 by
Stéphane Deshaies, sur Flickr
Vauréal river
Canyon de la Vauréal by
Simon Massicotte, sur Flickr
CAN_
Another canyon : Observation river
Canyon de l'Observation by
Simon Massicotte, sur Flickr
Île d'Anticosti - Rivière-à-l'Huile by
Isabelle Lafontaine, sur Flickr
Not far from the pointe Sud-Ouest
Pointe Sud-Ouest by
Serge D., sur Flickr
Baie-de-la-Tour Waterfalls
Chute Baie-de-la-Tour by
Serge D., sur Flickr
Au fil du Saint-Laurent by
Thalassa-France3, sur Flickr
IMG_0518-1 by
Stéphane Deshaies, sur Flickr
Vauréal waterfalls
Anticosti Boreal Waterfall by
Christian Rondeau, sur Flickr
_COT2518LRv1080 by
mammouth48, sur Flickr
Canyon de la Vauréal by
Simon Massicotte, sur Flickr
Likely to happen
Autoportrait by
René Bourque, sur Flickr
Winds...
IMG_2867 by
René Bourque, sur Flickr
Gone Fishin'
Photos-René-Bourque-33.jpg by
René Bourque, sur Flickr